Perennials; (sometimes pulvinate, caudex simple or many-branched); scapose or not; usually pubescent or pilose, sometimes glabrous, trichomes short-stalked, forked, subdendritic, or submalpighiaceous, mixed with simple ones (rarely exclusively). Stems erect to decumbent or ascending, unbranched or branched. Leaves basal and, sometimes, cauline; petiolate or sessile; basal rosulate, petiolate, blade margins entire, sinuate, dentate, or, rarely, pinnately lobed; cauline usually absent, rarely few present, (sub)sessile, blade margins usually entire, rarely dentate or pinnately lobed. Racemes (corymbose, sometimes bracteate basally or throughout), elongated or not in fruit. Fruiting pedicels erect, divaricate, or ascending, slender (much narrower than fruit). Flowers: sepals [sometimes persistent], oblong [ovate], lateral pair not saccate basally (sometimes slightly so in B. humilis and B. linearis); petals white, pink, or purple [rarely pale yellow], obovate, oblanceolate, or spatulate, (slightly to much longer than sepals), claw distinct or not, (shorter than sepal, apex obtuse or rounded); stamens tetradynamous; filaments dilated or not basally; anthers ovate or oblong, (apex usually obtuse, sometimes apiculate); nectar glands (4), lateral, 1 on each side of lateral stamen. Fruits siliques or silicles, sessile, linear, oblong, cylindrical, oval-elliptic, ovoid, lanceoloid, lanceoloid-subulate, or globose, smooth or torulose, terete or slightly latiseptate; valves each often with prominent midvein, glabrous or pubescent; replum rounded; septum complete, (membranous, translucent); ovules (5-)14-44 per ovary; stigma capitate, entire or slightly 2-lobed. Seeds plump, not winged, oblong or ovoid; seed coat (minutely reticulate), not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons incumbent. x = 7.
Sep somewhat cucullate; pet white or suffused with purple, oblong-obovate; short stamens subtended by a U-shaped gland; filaments flat; anthers cordate- ovate; ovary cylindric, with 2-several ovules per locule; style very short; stigma capitate; fr linear, often torulose, the valves with prominent midnerve and obscure secondary nerves, the septum composed of thick-walled elongate cells and appearing transversely striolate at 20 x; herbs with simple or branched hairs. 20, circumboreal.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
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